


Winter solstice paradox

by Ohgress



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: Dream Sharing, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, Lucid Dreaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3958249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohgress/pseuds/Ohgress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it happened, the hands on their clocks were suddenly in sync and it was 3.06 AM on the 21st of December, the longest night of the year, in both 2015 and 2043.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea I've had for a while and since I have massive writer's block I will post short chapters as the story comes along. Hopefully every second day or so.

As it happened, the hands on their clocks were suddenly in sync and it was 3.06 AM on the 21st of December, the longest night of the year, in both 2015 and 2043. Cole twitched in his sleep in the all too soft bed at Ramse’s place. Cassie frowned in hers and tried to find a comfortable position in Cole’s old bunk bed. Somehow the powers of the universe glanced at them and saw their pain and longing. It was time to let these two lost souls share their misery.

\-----

Cole was walking in a strange red forest, all the leaves were red and the grass too. He heard a dark woman's voice saying "You are walking through a red forest, the grass is tall", and he thought _why is there someone telling me what I'm doing, I can see that._ But then he heard another sound, a fairer woman's voice, sobbing between her pleas of no. He knew that voice. "Cassie?" The sobbing stopped. He looked around but he couldn't see anyone. "Cassie? Are you there?" Suddenly he was in front of an old worn down house. Lying on the steps up to the porch was a fragile figure he recognized immediately. “Cassie!” Cole rushed forward and somehow he expected Cassie to disappear in front of him, like she had in so many of his dreams, but instead when he reached for her she turned around and looked straight at him. “Cole?” Cole lunged forward and collected her in his arms. She was real. How was she so real?

“Cole? How… how are you here?” Cassie was confused. She’d had this nightmare a thousand times it seemed like, but this had never happened before. The man in the plague mask had always come out of the house and just as he was about to touch her she had always woken up. But now, now she was in Cole’s arms instead and he felt so real. Maybe it was because she knew she was lying in his bed surrounded by his smell but either way, this wasn’t a nightmare anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Cole released her from his tight hug and gazed at her. “What do you mean, how am I here? How are you here? You always disappear before I can reach you.” He caressed her face with his thumbs on her cheekbones. “Cassie… I’ve missed you so much.”

Cassie couldn’t really believe her luck. This was the best damn dream she’d had since she got to this godforsaken place. She send a thank you to her brain for finally coming up with this. It was so long overdue, and this Cole was all that she wanted, warm, caring and honest. She smiled up at him, taking in the sight of him. It was so clear. His eyes were so blue and his smile so tender. “I have waited for this dream for so long”, she said. “The witness always appear and scares me to wake up. I’m so tired of this nightmare. I’m so glad you are here instead.”

“This is a nightmare? Where are we anyway?” Cole looked around. This was the strangest dream he had ever been in. He didn’t recognize the surroundings, they were not any he’d been in before.

Cassie looked strangely at him. “It’s the red forest of course.” How didn’t Cole know this? “I’m always here, always…”

The red forest… the one Cassie had told him about. Why was he dreaming about this? Cole didn’t understand. Had his brain come up with this version of it from what Cassie had said? And how come this was the first dream since he splintered her to 2043 he actually got to hold her, to touch her? “Well I guess, you’ve made me dream about this. You were so scared after the army had taken you. And I was so scared they had broken you.”

Cassie frowned. Cole had clearly gone mad. What was he talking about? This was her dream. Why was he being so strange all of a sudden? “Cole, this is my dream. This is where I always end up after I’ve been walking through the red forest and all that tall grass.”

_You are walking through a red forest, the grass is tall._ Cole remembered the woman’s voice he’d heard.

“I heard a woman’s voice, saying _the grass is tall_. Who was that?” Cole wondered.

“That’s her, that striking woman who drugged me and took me to this place the first time. I can’t get her out of my head.” Cassie put her hands to her skull. “She’s always in there. And those damn red leaves.”

A thought struck Cole, was he in Cassie’s dream? Was this why everything felt so real, why she felt so real? He looked down on her. She looked like she was in pain, clamping her head between her hands.

“Cassie? Are you okay?” Cassie nodded.

“Cassie, I think I’m in your dream.”

Cassie let her hands go from holding her head. She reached out for Cole and touched his forehead with her hand and let her fingers drift down his face. He was solid and scruff, just like in reality. What was this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So maybe they are a bit ooc but this is a dream, and for once they are saying what they are thinking and not holding back, because they don't have to.


	3. Chapter 3

Cassie sat up on the steps. She looked at Cole. He looked dead serious about what he had just said. Cassie knew of lucid dreaming. She had never tried it, it sounded impossible to her, but so had time travel and here she was in 2043. Was shared lucid dreaming also a possibility, just like in Inception?

“Have you watched Inception or something?” Cassie asked Cole. Why? She didn’t really know.

“What’s that?” So, he hadn’t.

“Never mind.”

If this was a shared lucid dream, she didn’t have to be here by this haunted house anymore. And just as she thought that, they were standing hand in hand in Cole’s old room at the facility, which was now her room.

Cole spun around. “Hey, my room.” He looked bewildered at Cassie.

“Yes, I thought, if you were right I didn’t have to be in that nightmare anymore. I think you’re right, we are sharing a dream.” She smiled at him, and hoped to God she wouldn’t wake up soon. Cole smiled back and squeezed her hand.

“You live in my room? You actually made it here?”

“Yes. Look! There I am,” Cassie said and pointed at herself lying in Cole’s bed. Cole jumped a little when he saw her sleeping form. He then looked at Cassie standing next to him but she just shrugged. “It’s a dream. Dreams are weird,” she simply stated.

Cole quietly walked up to the bed and watched the real Cassie carefully. She had the blanket tucked tight around her all the way up to her neck. She looked pale and she a frown on her face. There were also several bruises on her forehead. He became worried. He looked back at dream Cassie who looked perfect, rosy cheeks and all. “Do they treat you alright? What happened when you got here?”

Cassie became serious. “I almost died, but Jones saved me.”

“But the bruises, they’re new, where do they come from?”

“Cole..,” Cassie walked up to stand beside him. She watched him watch her with increasingly worry on his face. “I get now why you didn’t want to tell me about this place. It’s hard being here. Things happen. Things you don’t want to think about.”

“Cassie,” Cole gave her a serious look. “What did they do to you? Tell me. You’ve only been here five weeks, you should still be recovering from your gunshot wound.”

“Five weeks? Cole, I’ve been here almost three months.”


	4. Chapter 4

How could that be? Did time move slower in the future? Cole shook his head. “What day is it here?” He asked Cassie staring at her sleeping form again.

“It’s almost Christmas. It’s the 21st of December”, Cassie informed him.

“Same here. In 2015 I mean.”

“Yes, but when I got here it was the beginning of October.”

October, Cole thought, maybe it had been fall the last time he was “home”. He couldn’t really remember anymore. It seemed like a long time ago. It didn’t really matter anyway. What mattered was how to get Cassie back.

“Why haven’t you splintered back?

“Jones says it’s because the machine in 2015 can’t take anything back, they don’t have the technology for that yet. “ A thought hit Cassie and she turned to face Cole. “Cole, you need to get to the facility again and explain to Katarina’s husband how to fix the reverse mechanism,” she said slightly agitated.

They were back at the place that had separated them. Cassie ran up to the core of the machine and started pointing things out for Cole, but all Cole saw was the steel table where he had left Cassie bleeding to death. And then he saw the corner where Ramse had been crouching before he helped him up. How had it all come to this? How could he have let this happen in the first place?

“Cole. Cole! Are you listening?” Cassie brought him out of his reverie.

“What?” Cole tried to focus on Cassie.

“You need to connect this thingy here to that thingy over there and then do the same thing on the other side, and I don’t remember what Katarina called them, she’s the physicist, not me, but maybe if you show Dr Jones he can figure it out, and….” Cole zoned out again. Cassie was trying to explain something important to him in that perky, positive way of hers and normally he would have listened very carefully, but there was just one big question filling up his mind.

“Cassie, what are we doing?”


	5. Chapter 5

“Cassie, what are we doing?”

“I’m explaining how you can get me back to 2015,” Cassie stated plainly. Cole was acting strange again. Wasn’t it obvious? Cassie thought.

“Yes, but why?”

“What do you mean, why? Because I don’t want to be here anymore. Because we have to stop the plague. Because I need to get home!” Cassie felt frustrated. Didn’t Cole want her to get back? Wasn’t that the goal of this?

“I know, Cassie, I know. I just… this is a dream. We can do anything we want but we don’t know if I’m even going to remember what you explained to me when I wake up.”

Cassie sighed. Cole was right. This was a dream. How did she even know what she tried to explain was correct? Maybe it was all gibberish. Maybe it was only true right here, right now, because it seemed to be.

Cassie nodded and walked towards Cole. “Okay, what are you suggesting?”

“Let’s go dancing,” Cole said with a small smile.

“Dancing?” Cassie gave Cole one of those “Do I even know you?”-looks she could give him on rare occasions. Cole loved those occasions, because he wanted to prove that Cassie was wrong about him. He wanted to prove to himself that he was a better person now. Ever since the Nightroom business when Cassie learned the truth about Henri and Cole felt his chest go ice-cold from Cassie’s anger, he decided he never ever wanted to do something like that to her again. It wasn’t worth it. At first the feelings of regret had surprised him and he didn’t understand them. He had done so many horrible things in the past and this was the thing that felt the most? It had shook him to core when he splintered back to that alternative reality where Cassie had been murdered. That’s when he realized what he actually could lose, that it was time to live a little.

“Yes, dancing. Like we did in the museum. You remember?”

Cassie felt her chest grow warm. That night… She had almost forgotten it. It seemed so long ago. It was a long time ago, when she was still Cassie and not this warrior woman she had become. She didn’t know if she knew how to be that person again, elegant and feminine.

“I remember. But I don’t know if I can take us there. That’s not me anymore. Too much has happen”. She said sadly while looking at Cole.

“Bullshit,” Cole exclaimed. “Come on, I’ll take us there. My turn,” he then said and took her hand.


	6. Chapter 6

The universe was happy. The two lost souls seemed to be on the right track, not only sharing misery but also happiness. The man who had seemed to have an all too hardened mind was now the dream leader in what looked like a wonderland. Away was the barren plain with the old house, away was the dark and dampen bunker, away was the bleak hall with a monstrous machine. Now there were colors and music and food and people smiling.

Cassie looked down on herself and she was wearing that red dress again. Then she looked at Cole who looked very dapper in Aaron’s tux. She felt herself blush a little. Everything around them seemed overtly colorful and Cassie wondered if this was how Cole saw what had been her world. She had forgotten there could be so many colors, so much happiness. They were dancing to that old song and Cole held his eyes focused solely on her.

“Wow…” Cassie didn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah, I really liked being here,” Cole explained.

“You did. You ate so much tandoori chicken,” Cassie said giggling. She remembered now. She had been so amused by him, his childish enthusiasm.

Cole laughed. “I know, they were really good.”

“You’re only supposed to take one, you know, not a whole bouquet.” Cassie laughed with him.

“Oh… that explains the waiter’s face. Ah, what the hell,” Cole shrugged and twirled Cassie around. “You only live once.”

“Really?” Cassie gave him a gleeful smile. “I would say you, we, have had several lifes by now. Courtesy of Jones,” Cassie said raising one eyebrow at him, joking with him, but Cole became quiet and serious.

“Hm, yeah, maybe you’re right. But when we were here, I didn’t know how much time I had left. Jones told me, the splintering was going to kill me.”

Cassie nodded. Jones had explained all this to her when she had woken up from the coma Jones had induced on her to heal her. Now she was the one who was in trouble.

They danced in silence for a while, just enjoying the music and the surroundings, the way their hands felt on each other’s bodies. Suddenly Cole cleared his throat and spoke.

“Why didn’t we ever slow down and do things like this more often? Why were we always in such a hurry?” He asked seriously looking at Cassie.

Cassie looked down between them. She knew the answer to this. At least from her point of view and it wasn’t just that they had a world to save, even though that was a big part of it. But that wasn’t why Cole was asking.

“I think I was scared of what we’d discover if we did,” she said looking into his eyes, searching for understanding. But Cole looked confused.

“What do you mean?” Cole asked with a frown.

“You know what I mean, James,” Cassie said knowingly. It was time to tell the truth.


	7. Chapter 7

“What do you mean?” Cole asked with a frown.

“You know what I mean, James,” Cassie said knowingly. It was time to tell the truth.

James… Cole swallowed. Cassie had said his first name. She didn’t normally do that. No wait, she had never done that, yet. He stopped dancing and released Cassie from his hold. Everything seemed to blur around them and they were the only two sharp objects. Cassie was looking at him like he should know the answer, and maybe he did. But he had never believed it, certainly not after he came back from Chechnya. He hadn’t recognized Cassie then. She was like a completely different person, angry, bitter almost. And it was true, he had destroyed her life, completely, over and over again. And Aaron, that backstabbing asshole, where was he in all this? How could Cole ask anything of Cassie ever again?

“I thought you were angry with me,” was all Cole managed to say, staring back at Cassie.

“No… No.” Cassie tilted her head and placed her hand gently on Cole’s cheek. “I was angry, but I was angry at everything, my life and what it had turned into, all the failures, that Aaron still didn’t believe in me, in us, what we were trying to do. I was just so tired of it all. But I was never angry at you. I could have chosen not to come to the hotel, but I did. It was my choice.” Cassie wanted Cole to believe in her. Yes, she had been angry at him at certain times, but immediately she had reminded herself that she actually did all this by her own free will. And Cole had fascinated her from the beginning. She couldn’t deny that. He was looking at her now with those beautiful but sad eyes, and she wondered what more she could say to convince him.

Cole felt his cheeks burning and chest pounding, if that was even possible in a dream, but this wasn’t an ordinary one. This was big. This was really big. Cole closed his eyes for a second, just trying to memorize the moment and the caress of Cassie’s hand. When they had parted, he hadn’t been sure. Aaron had just died and Cassie had clearly been upset, but still, the look she gave him, lying on that steel table, he should have known. Feelings had never been his area of expertise. Hell, Ramse had told him that so many times, but he knew Cassie had been upset. So hadn’t done it, what he had been thinking of.

“I’m really sorry about what happened to Aaron. It wasn’t your fault.” He needed to say that once more. Cassie should never feel guilty about that. He should, but frankly he didn’t.

Cassie nodded and took her hand down. She wringed her hands together because this was hard. This was the crux of everything. “I know, he chose to betray us and I will never forgive him for that. But at one time he was my fiancé and…” Cassie paused and shook her head. Looking down, not wanting to meet Cole’s eyes before she continued. “It’s silly but I think I thought, if I gave way for my feelings, f… for you, I would have been the betrayer.”


	8. Chapter 8

Cole thought about what Cassie had said, and he knew she was right, because it was the same reason he had held back his feelings for her. But his betrayal would have been to everyone, to seven billion people and he couldn’t live with that. Cassie was not his mission, Jones had said, and still, a world saved without him and Cassie in it would be completely useless. And knowing he felt like that gnawed on Cole’s mind.

\----

Guilt is a fickle and devious enemy to Love. It slowly eats away your thoughts that maybe, you actually deserve to be loved. The universe noticed that Cole and Cassie both were in this state of mind. Neither of them thought they deserved the other. Too many bad things had happen and they were both responsible for them. It decided to intervene. Sometimes you need a different perspective.

 

Just as Cole was about to say something, what he hadn’t actually figured out yet, he felt a push and suddenly he and Cassie were stumbling into a dawn lit motel room. He took hold of her arm to help her from falling, and when they had gained their footing they noticed two sleeping forms on a bed. It was them. They were looking at themselves.

They looked so small and fragile, Cole thought. He saw that he was awake and intensely looking at Cassie while she was sleeping. He remembered this moment. It was perhaps the saddest and the happiest moment in his life, because here he was, stuck in 2015, together with Cassie and he just knew it wasn’t going to last. Not if they could save the world.

“You’re not sleeping”, Cassie suddenly said. Cole turned his head and looked at her. She held her eyes at him on the bed. “You’re looking at me”. He looked back at themselves again and sighed. “Yes.”

It was Cassie’s turn to look at Cole. She was astonished by this. Had he been awake all night? She knew he had woken up before her because she when she woke up from her bad dream and saw him looking at her, she had felt relieved he was there with her. But she hadn’t known he had been looking at her like that for what seemed was a long time. The sight of him on the bed with his loving eyes on her made her happy.

“What were you thinking about?” Cassie wanted to know. Cole sighed again. “Please, tell me.”

Cole took a deep breath and said, “I was thinking about how lucky I was being here with you, and at the same time how unlucky I was because I couldn’t keep you.”

“But you didn’t know what was going to happen, Cole.”

“No, but I had a feeling something bad would happen. And whatever happened, you and me and the world saved was an impossible thing.” Cassie took Cole’s hand and squeezed it. She felt tears in her eyes because she had felt the same thing. “I know”, she said.

“But the worst part was that I didn’t really care about the mission anymore. All I could think about was you, and I felt really guilty about that.” This was new information to Cassie. She hadn’t known Cole felt guilty too.

“And that’s why I got up when you woke up and I saw you smile at me.” Cole finally looked at her where she was standing beside him again. “I knew if I didn’t I would fail everyone, because in that moment I only wanted you.”


	9. Chapter 9

Cassie felt herself fluster from Cole’s gaze at her, it was intense and so full of love. “Cole…” was all she managed to say before she invited him into her arms. Cole clung to her like his life depended on it and Cassie felt so happy. He wanted her. She shouldn’t feel so content about it, but she did. Screw the moral for a second.

“I’m sorry,” Cole said into her shoulder then.

“What?” Cassie straightened up and looked at him. “No, don’t say that. Don’t ever say that.”

“But this wasn’t supposed to happen,” Cole whispered.

Cassie smiled. She knew what he meant. No, this wasn’t supposed to happen and maybe they should feel guilty about their feelings, but often, feelings can’t be controlled. She rested her forehead to his and let her fingers play with his hair in the back of his neck.

“Yet, here we are.”

“Here we are.”

The two star-crossed lovers stood there, in each other’s arms, forehead to forehead, gently nuzzling their noses and smiling shyly.

Cassie really wanted to kiss him now. It wouldn’t be like in reality because in dreams everything always seems better, but she didn’t care. She wanted to see what her brain could dream up and maybe because this was a special dream, a shared one, the kiss would be mutual and simultaneously dreamt up. So she finally leaned in and met his lips with hers. They were so soft but his upper lip scruff tickled her a little, and she couldn’t help smiling over the fact that she probably had fantasized about that in secret before this dream. Cole smiled back against her lips, but before he could ask her why she was smiling, she deepened the kiss. Cole instantly followed her lead, pressing her body against him and Cassie never wanted to wake up.

Cole thought Cassie tasted like honey and when their kisses became even more passionate he saw stars. No, literally he saw stars. There were no roof of the motel room anymore but a star adorned sky, and they were on the bed, naked. He decided to blame Cassie for that.

When Cassie noticed what state they were in, she suddenly stopped kissing him and slowly looked down, raising her eyebrows and then looked back up at Cole again with a blush.

 “Well, it’s a dream. We can pretend it never happened. Technically, it didn’t,” Cassie said with a cheeky grin. Cole chuckled at that. He wished he would never wake up from this. His heart was going to hurt as hell. He kissed her, then once more. Cassie giggled and the sound was like music to his ears, 2015 music. He rolled on top of her, and the universe blushed and looked away for a while.

 

After they had come down from their dreamy high, lying on their backs and looking at the stars, Cassie asked Cole a question.

“Why didn’t you kiss me goodbye?” Cole knew what she meant.

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to. And I didn’t want it to be goodbye,” he answered.

Cassie turned on her side and faced him. “Cole, it wasn’t goodbye. I thought it was, but I’m gonna get back to you, okay?” Cole looked at her. She looked very confident, the opposite of how she had looked on that steel table. He nodded and smiled at her.

“Promise me, when you see me again, that you kiss me,” she said. Cole blushed a little at that. “Promise,” Cassie persisted with a smile. “Okay, I promise,” Cole snickered. How could he not?

“Another thing,” Cassie continued. “Promise me you tell me everything from then on. No more hiding feelings. Okay?”

“Same to you,” he said raising an eyebrow. They had been equally bad at communicating their feelings.

“I promise.” Cassie nodded and leaned in to kiss him.

 

When they looked up and around them again, they weren’t in the motel room anymore but on a beach.

“Where are we?” Cassie asked and sat up. Cole did the same. He smiled.

“It’s my happy place.”

“What?”

“The Keys, we’re in The Keys, Cassie.”

 

And when the longest night was over, Cassie woke up smiling in Cole’s bunk bed, feeling warmer than she’d ever felt in this dreary place. She had to go home now, god dammit, she had to get home. Cole was waiting for her and she was in love with him. When Cole woke up he felt calm, in spite of what he had dreamt. Cassie was alive and she was going to come home to him, it was just a matter of time, and he loved her. By God, did he love her!

They got out of their beds invigorated with new energy and a new hope for the future, promising themselves to make every day count until they got to see each other again, and when they did, never let anything be unspoken ever again.

 

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this, even though it took me a bit longer than was intended. 
> 
> Sometimes we need fairytales.


End file.
